Will My Heart Return To White?
by Funky In Fishnet
Summary: Will Scarlet, once the Knave of Hearts and now the White King, has disappeared. It seems the curse that once stole everyone from the Enchanted Forest has been cast again. Anastasia, the White Queen, is not going to lose Will a second time.


_**Disclaimer:** I own nothing._

_**Author Note: **Written because as I understand it Will's appearances in season four of 'Once Upon A Time' are chronologically after the events of 'Once Upon A Time In Wonderland', and I wanted to explore how his sudden disappearance from Wonderland would affect Ana. Fic title is a lyric from the English translation of the song 'Bad Apple.'_

* * *

**WILL MY HEART RETURN TO WHITE**

When it happened, Anastasia didn't feel anything. Later, she wished she could have said that she'd known, that she'd felt some tremor, some sign that something was incredibly wrong. But she didn't, she didn't realise what had happened – that a powerful spell had swept Will away from her, away from Wonderland. When she heard the news, that was when Ana felt something.

It was as though the bottom had dropped out of her world. Was this what Alice had felt like, Anastasia wondered distantly, when she'd kicked Cyrus off that cliff? No wonder Alice had hated her, no wonder Alice had been willing to shut herself away forever.

When Anastasia had lost Will before, she had at least known that he was still out there, thanks to the stories she'd heard of his thievery and crimes, and she had soon formed a plan for regaining what she'd lost. Now, she knew nothing, only news brought to her by the White Rabbit who had been waiting for Will to return so that they could hop back to Wonderland from the Enchanted Forest. Rabbit had seen the storm of magic sweeping everybody up and after a last futile look around for Will, Rabbit had created a portal for himself and had left. He couldn't risk losing his family again.

He looked worried and resigned when relating the story to Anastasia, as though he expected her anger. And oh, Anastasia was angry, she was furious with Will for not rushing back fast enough and she was furious with whoever had presumed to cast such a spell in the first place.

Anastasia was so angry. Her pain and despair could wait for now.

"You should have dragged him back!" she exclaimed, her fury lashing out at whoever was nearest because Will wasn't.

Rabbit flinched and raised his hands as though to argue but he didn't say anything. He and Will were friends after all. Anastasia wilted for the moment, her fury deflating in the face of someone she cared about and at seeing some of the pain she was feeling on Rabbit's face. It wasn't as though getting angry with Rabbit was going to bring Will back; it didn't even make Anastasia feel better because of who she was shouting at.

"Thank you, Rabbit," she said quietly. "For waiting, and for trying anyway."

Rabbit looked up, still surprised for a moment even after all the recent time he had spent with Will and Ana, but his ears drooped and he nodded. Anastasia was glad that it was just the two of them for now. Her guards were poised at each door of course and her Tweedle would be bringing her tea at any moment. She got up from her throne and after a hesitant moment, pressed a hand to Rabbit's furry shoulder. It wasn't much but she was learning, remembering, that sometimes something small, a word, a gesture, could make a great difference. It could mean a lot. It did now. She was glad Rabbit was there and maybe he was glad that she was there too.

She paced a little, staring out of the window at her kingdom. Who had dared move against her? Was it because word had spread that the Red Queen had become the White Queen and so her style of rule had changed accordingly? Had that been interpreted as an opportunity to take advantage of?

Who had taken her White King?

Her back to Rabbit, she took deep measured breaths, trying to calm her pounding heart. That had to wait. She had to move now, before too much time passed.

She turned around, resolute, composed and ready. "Did you recognise the magic? Every spellcaster has a signature."

Rabbit shook his head, "All I know is whoever they are, they are formidable. I've never seen anything like it."

"It took everybody?"

"Yes, nobody was spared in that entire kingdom."

Anastasia frowned; now that she was calm again, Rabbit's description was kicking at something in her memory. Mentally, she shifted through the thousands of stories she'd heard. She remembered well the hours that she'd spent with the Queen of Hearts, how magic had been unfolded before her and how she had come to understand it. And equally she remembered listening to Will's stories of where he'd been, what he'd done during their time apart and more importantly where he'd been taken. With dawning horror, Anastasia felt everything clarify.

A spell powerful enough to vanish a kingdom's population. It didn't sound like a spell; it sounded more like...

"A curse," she murmured, lifting her gaze to Rabbit. "Like the one that took Will away to that other realm, the one without magic."

Rabbit startled but didn't disagree, "Why would someone cast the same curse a second time?"

Anastasia felt tense and sure and still so angry, "Someone who _really_ wants that curse to work."

She wanted to leave immediately, Rabbit knew where Will was – he'd taken Alice and Cyrus there before, Anastasia had heard those stories too. She wanted to get to Will as soon as possible, before whoever had cast the curse decided to unleash worse. Clearly whoever the magic-user was, they were determined to succeed. Worse was almost certainly to come.

Which could mean worse for Wonderland. Anastasia faltered; who would rule in her absence? Usually it would be Will, complaining the whole time about having to deal with official duties and couldn't they just change the way things were done? Anastasia had always liked how he'd looked in his fine kingly clothing, cut to give him great ease of movement of course and to stop him from fidgeting too much. They had changed things in Wonderland, together, and they had ruled well. They still would, many years from now. Anastasia cradled that thought.

Wonderland was still rebuilding though and while many of its citizens now trusted and liked Anastasia, there were more than a few who didn't. There'd been murmurings of a coup, Will had contacts amongst Wonderland's criminal element so he'd been working on getting his hands on any useful information about possible coups or dethronement plans. It was why he'd gone to the Enchanted Forest in the first place, to follow up a lead. Anastasia was struck by a thought that made her shiver; was the curse part of this supposed coup? Had it always been?

She so tempted to say _to hell with it_ and leave Wonderland behind without a second thought so that she could storm through portals and take back her husband, she could burn through everything to get to him. But as strong as the temptation was, Anastasia had done that before. Too many people had suffered when she'd sacrificed the world in order to regain her lost love. She'd sworn it'd never happen again...

"I need to..."

"You can't leave, your Majesty," Rabbit hastened to tell her. "Wonderland needs its Queen."

"It needs its King too," Anastasia pointed out. "As does it's Queen."

They were both quiet for a moment before Anastasia spoke again, "If it's the same curse as before, then you know where Will'll be. You need to go there, now."

Rabbit looked concerned, "But you said someone wants this curse to work. I could get trapped there by whoever cast this magic. What if they curse me? Then no one here will be able to go there and neither Will or I will be able to get back to Wonderland."

There'd been talk that the Mad Hatter had learned how to jump between worlds. But his house was abandoned now and he hadn't been seen since. Rabbit was right; there was a risk that he and his portalling powers would be lost. Anastasia was more than tempted to command him to go anyway because Will _had_ to know that she was trying to reach him. Will could be a pessimist; he might already be thinking the worst. Anastasia closed her eyes and clenched her teeth. This was no time for tears, not yet.

She missed with sudden fierceness the friends she had made thanks to Will and knew immediately what she was going to do.

"Go to Alice then," she commanded, opening her eyes, her gaze bright. "Tell her what's happened; ask if she can come here, just for a while. If not, we'll...we'll find a way to talk."

Alice would know what Anastasia was going through – and yes, Anastasia still felt some guilt about that. But Alice would bring a fresh perspective. She would help Ana find a clear way through this. They were friends now, once a very strange thought indeed, and Ana badly needed to speak to a friend. In Wonderland she mostly had subjects, there were very few that she would actually deem friends. So she would speak to Alice and to Cyrus because he knew magic and might, after all his years spent as a genie, have some pertinent ideas.

Alice and Cyrus had seen her cry before. She wasn't their Queen, she didn't have to perfectly hold herself together for them.

Rabbit nodded but hesitated before leaving, "We'll do all we can, your Majesty, for both of you."

Anastasia swallowed around her blocked throat, "I know, thank you. Please tell my Tweedle to wait outside."

"How will he know when to enter?"

_Because I'll have stopped screaming._

Anastasia inclined her head and managed a small strained smile, "He'll know."

* * *

Rabbit left and Anastasia had a little while to herself. She threw a goblet, an ostentatious dinner plate, a whole bowl of glittering fruit. She wanted to break the whole room apart, the entire palace; she wanted to rip out her own heart to stop it from hurting. Just like Will had once done. She leaned heavily against a table, her breaths harsh and heavy. How could this be happening again? What did the mystery magic-user have in mind for the Enchanted Forest's citizens? Were they planning on attacking Wonderland next? Why had Will been taken?

Maybe he'd see Ella again. He said he'd seen her before and that she'd had troubles of her own to deal with. It turned out that her happy ending hadn't been so beautiful after all, not after the curse. She'd almost lost her child and her husband. But she'd managed to regain them both once more and had become disgustingly happy all over again, so Will had reported.

Anastasia sometimes pressed a hand to her own stomach and thought about the _what ifs_ and the _whys,_ spell ideas tumbling through her head as she wished for such a thing to be possible without costing her everything as it inevitably would. Magic was cruel and costly; she'd learned that lesson well. Oh sometimes she thought it'd be worth it but then she'd catch sight of Will or remember a conversation with Alice and would find herself thinking otherwise. She'd think of Ella and of course Ella had gotten a child, a husband and another happy ending. Of course.

Anastasia could sometimes think about her sister without resentment. Sometimes she hoped to see Ella again.

Anastasia caught sight of her reflection in a polished ornament. She wore white and silver now, a beautiful dress with filigreed details, hair-pins shaped like white roses and no gloves because she so liked to gaze at her engagement and wedding rings. She looked at them now, the rings that Will had put on her finger, the day she'd thought she'd finally gotten her happy ending. How stupid she'd been.

She dried her tears carefully and checked her make-up, it hadn't run too grievously. With a flick of fingers, magic instantly neatened everything, both the room and herself. She took a deep breath, then another. Things were moving now and she had to move with them. There was much to do. She cleared her throat and her Tweedle entered soundlessly.

"My Queen?"

He sounded a touch worried, unsurprisingly. Anastasia lifted her chin and held his gaze; here was someone she could count on. He'd proven himself more than once during the whole hideous Jafar business. She relaxed a fraction.

"The King has been taken; it's possible a curse has been recast throughout the Enchanted Forest."

The Tweedle looked appropriately aghast and then fluttered his hands thoughtfully, "I can rearrange your audience with your subjects today. There is a precedent for situations like this; when a matter of state requires your immediate attention."

That was kind of him, Anastasia smiled gratefully because sitting and listening to her subjects' woes while her own troubles were tearing at her would certainly only make her pain worse. But that couldn't matter, because she was their Queen and they were beginning to rely on her now.

"Only you and I and the White Rabbit know about the King. We need to keep it that way, if this is connected to that very likely coup then we cannot allow whoever's supporting those plans in Wonderland to know what effect they're having."

The Tweedle nodded, looking sorry but agreeing with his Queen's assessment of the situation. "Well, then, your subjects await you, my Queen."

He and Will had become friends of a sort, Anastasia had observed, and Will was glad that his wife had someone working close beside her that she could trust so much. It was a boon, Anastasia had seen that, and she was grateful for her Tweedle's advice and efficiency, particularly now as he suggested which beautiful tiara she might wear, ensuring that she looked exactly as she needed to – the White Queen. Appearance was so important, whoever had done this was not going to see Ana's broken heart, her tears or her despair. They were only going to see the White Queen putting her subjects first, ruling with implacable strength, unworried by her husband's absence. Underneath it all, Anastasia was going to plan.

"Contact Cyrus' brothers," she said quietly. "They were genies; they might know something about curses and how to reverse them."

She thought about the bottle currently locked up in the castle vault. Rabbit had searched long and hard for the bottle that contained Jafar and thanks to Anastasia's magic, he'd managed to find and retrieve it without releasing the vengeful genie it still contained. Jafar's bottle was kept securely locked away, Anastasia might have gone to look at it to gloat once or twice. She thought momentarily about visiting the bottle for a very different reason. Power like that could be a great help in this situation.

It was a thought that she only considered for the briefest moment.

The Tweedle jotted her command down in the tiny notebook that he always had about his person. "Of course. And I will ensure that ears are sharpened at every corner. If any whisper mentions the King's name, it will be followed."

Good. There was an ache stretching throughout Anastasia's body. It was familiar – heartache, it was even more painful than she remembered. Her love was gone, snatched away and he might not...No. Anastasia checked that her jewellery was sitting just right and then glided towards the door, her Tweedle just ahead of her.

She was the White Queen and she was a wife and both were important. Wonderland needed her and so did Will. She wasn't going to let either of them down.

God, she couldn't wait to talk to Alice.

"The White Queen."

Anastasia remembered the feel of Will's hand in hers, his kiss on her lips, a kiss that'd broken more than one spell. They'd shaped and saved each other's lives, countless times. They always would.

Anastasia's fingers briefly tightened together. No one took her husband or her kingdom. No one.

Her body screamed with heartache and anger but she smiled, serene, poised and powerful as she strode forward, ready to take the day and hold her kingdom, to plan and retrieve her King. Magic coursed through her while love pushed her onward and shattered her heart.

_-the end_


End file.
